Mine was doing that off and on for awhile along with some other strange things. Finally pinned it down to a bad stick of RAM. Replaced the RAM and have had not problems since. Thank heavens for a relatively cheap fix!

Another strategy is to remove one stick of RAM at a time and see if the problem goes away. If you find what you think is a bad stick, try it in a different slot to make sure it's not the slot that's gone bad.

Jenny, I ordered the cd from them. I probably should have at least tried to download it myself but I got nervous looking at "iso files" "extract to bootable cd", etc. Anyway, once it comes I'll test-out the memory and see what happens. It probably won't hurt to have that on hand as a utility anyway.

Edit: I just checked the power settings in my control panel. On the first screen the setting for hybernate was never as were all the other settings. On another tab there was a check block for allowing hybernation. It had been checked to allow. I unchecked it and hit apply. Don't know if that will make any difference.

Edit: So far, so good. Machine has not turned itself off yet. I'll watch it for a few days (only turning it off at night) and see what happens.

No. I use MagicJack and the computer needs to be on for it to work. Or at least my version. There is a newer version that plugs into the wall that does not require the computer to be on but I don't have it yet.

However, I unchecked the block in Power Management in XP Control Panel that allows hibernation. Since then it hasn't turned itself off. I'm going to give it a few days, but so far so good.

Yeah, turning on hibernation will put the computer into sleep/standby mode. Usually all that's needed to bring the computer back to life is to press the power button again. We have our computer setup that way, so I can leave it and go do something else knowing the computer will go to sleep after a certain amount of time. Then pressing the power button wakes it up.

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If something gets your goat, it just proves you have a goat to get.

Well I don't know what's going on. I went thru the control panel and could not find any settings that would turn the computer off. I think my motherboard is running hot at 59/60c but I don't know if that would cause the system to power down.

I have to check the mail to see if my memtest cd has arrived. Will let you know the result.